The Best Idea Yet - 🎭 Hamilton: From Founding Father To Broadway Star | 38
Episode Date: July 1, 2025In 2008, Lin-Manuel Miranda badly needed a vacation. He’d just won the Tony for his musical “In The Heights,” he’d been going nonstop. So he took a break, bringing a book with him for... poolside lounging: the 800-page biography of America’s first treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton. But what started as a light beach read soon became an obsession. Lin HAD to bring this man’s incredible life to the stage. Thus began an epic journey: from the White House, to Lincoln Center, to (eventually) Broadway. “Hamilton” became a massive success, scoring a record 16 Tony noms, the Pulitzer Prize, and $1B+ in revenue. But along the way, Lin and his team had to reckon with a problem: when your show about democracy becomes too exclusive, how do you bring it back to the people? Find out how Ham4Ham broke the B’way mold, how a streaming deal with Disney+ set the stage for Taylor Swift, and why “Hamilton” is the best idea yet. Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletter Follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting www.wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/ now. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Nick, did I ever tell you about Mr. Kip?
One of the great teachers of all time.
And he was a contact men's hockey player on the side.
Body checking by day,
grid and papers by night kind of a thing.
His focus was the civil rights movement.
And taking this class honestly opened my eyes
and made me like aware of politics and the world.
It was my political enlightening.
As a great teacher does.
He highlighted this moment during a civil rights protest
where a man simply held a sign that said,
I am a man.
Wow.
I have never forgotten it.
Well, I dressed up as Paul Revere once for history class,
and I cried when someone thought I was a pirate.
So, it wasn't quite as deep as what you were thinking, Jack.
I think both of our experiences next show
the importance of a great story
in making history come alive in our minds.
Absolutely, Jack. And the importance of a great teacher to making history come alive in our minds. Absolutely, Jack.
And the importance of a great teacher
to bring those stories to life.
But not all good teachers work in a classroom.
Some teachers need a slightly bigger stage.
What do you think?
Maybe a Broadway stage?
That's right, Nick, because today we're talking about...
My name is Alexander Hamilton.
Hamilton.
The hip hop musical about the life and times of America's first Treasury Secretary.
It debuted on Broadway in 2015 and immediately started shattering records.
We're talking box office, Tony nominations, and the number of Thomas Payne references in one night on Broadway.
Everyone lined up to see this show. Tony nominations, and the number of Thomas Paine references in one night on Broadway.
Everyone lined up to see this show.
From the Obamas to Oprah to Tom Hanks and Beyonce, this show redefined the modern theater
going experience and brought color to an entire generation's understanding of the American
Revolution.
Plus, it made an international superstar of the man who wrote the script, the lyrics,
the music, oh, and who played Hamilton himself, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Actually, the reason I know the musical is because of you, Jack.
You got me the Hamilton tickets for a Christmas present.
And I've never even been to the show myself.
What a gift.
That's what a good friend I am.
When I gave you those tickets, I described the Hamilton musical as one of the greatest
creative accomplishments of all time.
Hamilton also provides us with the perfect case study to understand the contradictory,
counterintuitive business of Broadway.
Fun fact, Broadway shows have a higher failure rate than restaurants.
So step on in to the room where it happened and learn how an impulse vacation purchase
led to one of the highest grossing musicals of all time
and how you can make the most of a sudden opportunity.
As Paul Revere, the pirate one said,
the profits are coming, the profits are coming.
One is by balance sheet, two is by cash flow.
Here's why Hamilton, the musical is the best idea yet.
cash flow. Here's why Hamilton, the musical, is the best idea yet. From Wondery and T-Boy, I'm Nick Martell. And I'm Jack Kraviche Kramer. And this is
the best idea yet. The untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. And risk takers who made them go viral. I got that feeling again.
Something familiar but new.
We got it coming to you.
I got that feeling again.
They changed the game in one move.
Here's how they book all the rules.
Kingston Buskers Rendezvous is back!
Starting July 10th, come to downtown Kingston for this crowd-wowing festival.
And enjoy four days of jugglers, musicians, acrobats, comedians, and more.
Talented performers from all over the world can't wait to entertain you all weekend long.
It all starts on Thursday, July 10th, with performances right in the heart of downtown
Kingston. And don't miss Buskers performances right in the heart of downtown Kingston.
And don't miss Buskers After Dark, the Friday Night Fire Show.
For more information, go to downtownkingston.ca.
Vacation sun just hits different.
The rays feel warmer and the reflection sparkles more brilliantly off the rippling water than it does at home. It's summer 2008, and 28-year-old Lin-Manuel Miranda
is lounging on a pool floatie in Mexico,
bobbing gently as he reads a book.
This is the first time he's been able
to fully relax in months.
Earlier this year, Lin's first big musical,
In the Heights, opened on Broadway.
He wrote the music and the lyrics,
and he plays the lead role. He wrote the music and the lyrics and he plays
the lead role. He's been working on this since college. But now the show's not only up. It just
won four Tony Awards including Best Musical and Best Score. This is a massive come up for this
New York kid from Inwood. The neighborhood at the northern tip of Manhattan, mere blocks from where in the Heights the musical is set.
As a kid, Lynn used to commute
from his mostly Dominican neighborhood
to the mostly white Upper East Side for school.
He became a cross-cultural ambassador,
loving both hip hop and Broadway musicals.
Picture him walking down Park Avenue, Jack,
his Walkman playing Naughty by Nature's OPP,
followed by I Dream a Dream from Lynn
is a Robber.
But now all grown up, Lynn has managed to translate his corner of New York City for
the Broadway going world in the form of song, dance, and rhymes.
And creating In the Heights has been an exhilarating ride, but also a completely exhausting ride.
So here's what Lynn is thinking. Let's tap the understudy to perform a week of shows
instead of me.
Lynn and his girlfriend Vanessa,
they're gonna take a little downtime down in Mexico.
Lynn even has a vacation book to read.
He bought it on Impulse,
a biography of a semi obscure figure from American history.
The kind of book you snag at the airport kiosk
right as your flight is boarding.
If that flight is really
long across multiple continents because this book is the 800 page Alexander Hamilton by historian Ron
Chernow this is an encyclopedic tome that covers thousands of letters speeches
Historical records of this lesser-known founding father. This book is dense.
But it also tells the story of a young Caribbean immigrant born to a single mother who rises
from poverty to become America's first Treasury Secretary.
Alexander Hamilton survives hardship, illness, and the death of his mom to earn a scholarship
to King's College, later renamed Columbia University.
So he emigrates to New York, while it's still a British colony.
Later he joins the American Revolution as Washington's right-hand man, and together
— spoiler! — they beat back the British to help win America its independence.
Hamilton becomes the intellectual architect of our system of governance that we still
have today because he wrote most of the Federalist
papers, the writings that convinced people to get on board with the new U.S. Constitution.
Oh, also there's a little tea involved here too. He withstands a sex scandal, loses his
eldest son in a duel, and is shot and killed himself in his own duel with Vice President
Aaron Burr, all before his 50th birthday.
Chernow's biography reads like a cross between Johnny Tremaine and Tupac's Only God Can
Judge Me.
Because Hamilton wasn't just a founding father.
This man was a G. He beefed with everyone.
Not just Aaron Burr, but a couple future presidents and a literal bishop.
Lin is sitting in that floaty and he can't shake the idea that Hamilton and Burr are
the Enlightenment-era Tupac and Biggie. Tragic ending and all. He cannot put this book down. Think about
this. How much one impulsive reading choice from like a Hudson newsstand at the airport, Terminal
3, is going to alter the theater and entertainment landscape forever. Jack, what if you picked him a
Dan Brown mystery instead? When he gets back from vacation, Lynn tracks down Ron Chernow's personal email address,
the historian who wrote this incredible story. And Lynn offers Ron tickets to In the Heights
and even asks Ron out for coffee. Ron, to his delight, says yes. And this one coffee
together will kick off a series of events that will transform both of their lives.
Picture cascading verses jotted into a notebook between stops on the southbound A train.
Lin is dreaming up ideas for his first rap song about Alexander Hamilton.
And that's all it is at first. Just one song.
He thinks it might be the start of
a concept album. A Hamilton mixtape, if you will. But Lynn's day job is performing the lead role in
In the Heights, a two and a half hour per show, eight shows a week commitment at the Richard
Rogers Theater on Broadway and West 46th Street. And that takes a whole ton of focus and it also takes even more physical
exertion. So he's going to leave this Alexander Hamilton pot to simmer. Maybe he scribbles a few
lyrics on his commute or hums a melody line into his phone's voice memo app. Either way,
it's his subway side hustle. Then in the spring of 2009, Lynn gets a call from an unlisted number.
But instead of a fake
bill collector, it's the White House. Call accepted. Newly elected President Obama and
First Lady Michelle Obama are hosting a night of poetry and music at the White House. Spike Lee
will be there. James Earl Jones is going to be there. The White House staffer on the phone wants
to know, would Lin be interested in performing? Uh, was Martin Van Buren the eighth president of the United States?
The answer is yes.
We'll take it.
They invite Lin to perform something from In the Heights.
You know, the one that won all the Tony Awards.
Makes sense.
But Lin is ambitious, like the founding father he's recently become obsessed with.
He sees a window of opportunity here, and Lin shoots his shot.
He asks, could I try a rap about Alexander Hamilton instead?
There is a slight pause on the line. That poetry doesn't sound very Def Jam at all. But hey,
the 44th president campaigned on change, so the staffer says yes. And before he knows it,
Lin is on his way down to D.C. Cut to the White House East Room. The ceiling drips with low-hanging crystal chandeliers.
In this room, some of the most powerful people in the American government are gathering,
all decked out in black tie, including the President and First Lady.
Joining Lin at the piano is his musician friend and collaborator, Alex Lacamoor. Alex did the
orchestral arrangements for In the Heights, and Lin trusts him completely,
even if his guts say, what the heck are we doing? When Lin gets the microphone, he starts talking,
a little too quickly. His voice sounds confident, but underneath, this guy is bubbling with nerves.
I'm thrilled the White House called me tonight because I'm actually working on a hip hop album
tonight because I'm actually working on a hip hop album
About the life of someone I think embodies hip hop Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton
You laugh, but it's true. You know a lot of ums in there a little awkward This isn't his cleanest work
This audience is clearly expecting a few rhyming jokes about taxation without representation like an SNL spoof or something
But then Alex lets rip
with the opening chords.
How does a bastard orphan son of a whore and a Scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgotten
spot?
As the song progresses, the laughs die down, the energy shifts, chuckles become nods as
Lin finds his flow. Nothing left to do for someone less astute.
Forget the nerdy satire, this is an epic poem
about the man who made the most of every opportunity
achieving the impossible until finally,
Lin gets to the song's dark punchline.
Me, I'm the damn fool that shot at Alexander Hamilton.
Lin and Alex leave the stage in a blur of applause.
Lynn starts questioning everything.
I saw Obama whispering something to Michelle.
What was he saying?
Turns out Obama was saying that his Treasury Secretary,
Timothy Geithner, needs to hear this.
The song, first conceived in 10 second snippets
between 190th Street and Times Square. It is a hit.
Video from the performance is posted to whitehouse.gov
and then to YouTube.
Views start pinging around the world.
This White House debut is more than just an incredible night.
It's one of the great product demos of all time.
And he nailed it.
Okay, Jack, so four minutes down,
only two and a half hours of musical to go.
After White House Poetry Night, Lin starts working slowly. Slow by Lin-Manuel Miranda standards
is still pretty fast because Lin shares quite a few traits with Alexander Hamilton.
They both work non-stop. Lin is still performing in the Heights eight shows a week.
So he's actually creating a second creative baby
while he's taking care of his first.
And during all of this, Lynn also gets hired
to help write the score for another musical, Bring It On.
He guest stars on network TV shows.
Oh, and he and his girlfriend Vanessa get married.
So Lynn is basically going full founder mode
on his life and career.
But two and a half years after that legendary
White House poetry jam, Lin has a grand total of three songs.
Now, three songs is more than I've ever written.
But at this rate, Lin is in danger of losing momentum
from his big night.
However, Nick, Lin has a secret weapon.
You see, when he gets excited about
something, he doesn't keep it to himself. He likes to knock ideas around with trusted collaborators,
basically open-sourcing his vision. Kind of reminds us of that proverb,
if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. We already know he's been
working things out with his arranger, Alex Lacamoire. But the next person Lynne turns to is his In the Heights director, a man named Thomas
Kale, or Tommy to his friends.
Tommy helped Lynne develop In the Heights from a tiny workshop production all the way
to Broadway.
And one thing he knows about Tommy?
Tommy is a great collaborator.
And one thing Tommy knows about Lynne?
He needs a deadline. So Tommy gently
suggests that Lin set a more ambitious goal for the Hamilton mixtape than one song a year. They're
going to need to set some benchmarks here, graph some internal deadlines. And honestly, it's a good
lesson for all of us. Creativity thrives on constraints. Otherwise, you'd still be writing
your sophomore year thesis.
But just as they're working all that out, a natural deadline falls in their lap.
Lynn is offered a slot in Lincoln Center's American Songbook series, an artsy annual
tribute to American music on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The date Lynn is offered is January 11th.
January 11th? I know what you're thinking, man. Hamilton's birthday! What are
the odds? How can Lin say no? In a matter of months, the Hamilton song count goes from 3
to 12, with each one telling a piece of Hamilton's rise. On January 11th, 2012, the first version of
the Hamilton mixtape plays before a cozy audience of about 450 people in Lincoln Center's Allen Room. The performance are mostly friends and collaborators Lynn and Tommy have worked with before.
For example, a tall, straight-backed actor
who never skips bicep day.
I'm talking about Christopher Jackson.
Now, Lin and Tommy know Chris from In the Heights
and from a freestyle rap group they formed years earlier.
And they trust him with one of the mixtape's most critical roles,
George Washington.
Can I be real a second? For just a millisecond.
Let down my guard and tell the people how I feel a second. George Washington.
He is so instrumental to developing George Washington, Chris will never have to audition
for future productions.
Chris's casting represents more than just a talented actor winning a juicy part because
this choice will actually come to define one of Hamilton's greatest
impacts as a piece of theater.
In real life, George Washington was a lifelong slaveholder, but in Hamilton, that slaveholder
is played by a black American actor.
In fact, every major character will be played by a non-white actor, with the exception of
King George played by a series of smirking white male tenors.
This non-traditional casting, it is very intentional.
Lynn and Tommy want the Hamilton mixtape to bring history into modern terms. The heroes of
Hamilton's story are young, they're idealistic, they want to change the world. And in an era when
America has just elected its first black president, what better time to give the dead presidents an update? This way everyone in the audience, citizen or immigrant, can see
themselves in the American story. So George Washington is black. And so is Aaron Burr.
And Thomas Jefferson. Oh, and playing Alexander Hamilton, the orphaned illegitimate scotman from
the West Indies, is a Puerto Rican Pulitzer Prize finalist from Inwood, Lin himself. Hey, when you're writing the show, you get
to shoot your shot.
Behind the closed doors of government offices and military compounds, there are
hidden stories and buried secrets from the darkest corners of history. From
covert experiments pushing the boundaries of science,
to operations so secretive they were barely whispered about.
Each week, unredacted, declassified mysteries,
we pull back the curtain on these hidden histories,
100% true and verifiable stories that expose the shadowy
underbelly of power.
Consider Operation Paperclip, where former Nazi scientists
were brought to America after World War II.
Not as prisoners, but as assets to advance U.S. intelligence during the Cold War.
These aren't just old conspiracy theories. They're thoroughly investigated accounts
that reveal the uncomfortable truths still shaping our world today.
The stories are real. The secrets are shocking.
Follow Redacted, Declassifiedified mysteries on the Wondery app,
or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Redacted early and ad free right now on Wondery+.
Let's start with the good news. The Hamilton Mixtape's 2012 debut at Lincoln Center gets
rave
reviews from everyone, including the New York Times. Their critic writes,
Is the Hamilton Mixed Tape a future Broadway musical? A concept album? Does it even matter?
What it is, is hot.
Killer review. But in practical terms, yeah, it does matter what form Hamilton takes next.
The difference between a song cycle with a jazz ensemble and a full Broadway production
is hundreds of artists and millions of dollars.
By Broadway production, we mean one of the 41 official Broadway venues in New York City,
the top rung of American theater.
These ornate 100-year-old theaters are stuffed into a few blocks of midtown Manhattan, where
Broadway intersects with Times Square. 100-year-old theaters are stuffed into a few blocks of midtown Manhattan where Broadway
intersects with Times Square.
In fact, that's one of the shockingly practical reasons the business of Broadway is so complicated.
The real estate is so limited.
There are just those 41 theaters, owned by just three companies, who have monopolistic
power over the producers of the shows.
This is why musicals often follow up their Broadway runs with a national tour.
The touring model helps productions recoup the expenses of Broadway by literally taking
the show on the road.
But in the meantime, Jack, turn off your ringer and pass me the playbill.
Let's dive a little bit deeper into the business engine of Broadway. Fun fact, Broadway generates nearly $15 billion annually and supports 96,000 jobs.
It is both a tourism driver and a cultural institution.
But Broadway shows are expensive to produce, especially musicals.
In the mid-20 teens, when Lin is trying to mount Hamilton, straight plays, as in no singing
and dancing, cost between $3 and $6 million to mount on Broadway, plus a half a million
per week to operate.
Oh, and for musicals, double it.
$8 to $12 million in fixed costs just to launch, and then after that, a million dollars per
week to operate the thing. Because musicals have big chorus numbers and a full orchestra, which means even bigger
weekly payrolls.
You gotta pay for all those oboes.
Now, Broadway shows, they're not only expensive, they're also really risky.
In fact, the Broadway world and the venture capital world, they actually have a lot in
common.
Only one in five Broadway shows
are profitable. That's right. 80% of what you see, enjoy and clap to on Broadway is losing money
faster than they can make it. Like VCs hoping for a unicorn IPO, you're betting on a few big hits
out of the bunch, which is why they say, yeah, you can make a killing on Broadway, you just can't make a living. Nobody is safe from flopping. And the ghosts of those flops haunt every Broadway producer.
And it is into this landscape that Lin-Manuel Miranda and his team find themselves in navigating.
Of the 46 shows on Broadway in 2012, only about a third of them are original pieces.
Everything else is either a revival, a film adaptation, or both.
Elf, the musical.
A Christmas story, the musical.
Ghost, the musical.
You get the idea.
So what this means is that a musical about a guy best known from your eighth grade history
textbook, kind of a long shot.
Another risk factor for Hamilton, it's a hip hop musical at a time when Broadway audiences
skew over 40 and white.
Almost 80% of all tickets sold in the 2014 season are going to white ticket buyers.
Leaving alone whether these audiences will embrace the diverse casting plan, what are
the chances your Aunt Muriel gets Lynn's Biggie Smalls references?
So even with its Tony award winning creative team
and the buzz in the press, a Hamilton musical is facing an uphill climb. Wrong topic, wrong music,
wrong audience. This thing is going to need a backing producer who believes in the show
despite all of those risks. Enter a mild-mannered, understated producer who will pull off the
unimaginable.
Jeffrey Seller doesn't look like a fortune teller.
He's got a slight build, curly hair, and shows up to work in a bicycle helmet.
But make no mistake, Nick, Jeffrey Seller can see the future because Jeffrey Seller
was one of the lead producers for In the Heights.
Right away, he recognized Lin-Manuel Miranda as a generational talent.
But back up a second, Nick.
Before Jeffrey was a Big Shot producer, he was a young showbucker in New York just hoping
for a chance to produce and direct.
One day, by chance, he attended a tiny workshop by a little-known composer.
It was so bare bones that the actors held their scripts on music stands.
But in that small space, Jeffrey saw the next runaway hit and the talent of its creator,
Jonathan Larson.
Three years later, Jeffrey was co-lead producer and financier on the smash hit, Rent.
Rent is a perfect case study in taking risky material mainstream.
It's a 1990s take on the 1890s opera La Boheme about a poor seamstress in Paris and
her artsy bohemian friends.
Rent updates the story, though, to New York, with a multiracial cast playing gay and trans
characters, drug addicts, and gasp performance artists. Several of the characters have HIV or AIDS,
a hot button issue back in the late 90s. So when the show opens, Jeffrey watches older audience
members actually walk out of the theater. To some producers, that real-time feedback might be a cue
to retool the show. But Jeffrey recognizes that rent is in a classic five-star, one-star situation. As in,
the only kind of reviews you want for a new product. Collecting five-star and one-star reviews
helps you hone in on your core audience. The same things making grandpa walk out or making young
people fall in love with and embrace the show. So rent runs on Broadway for 12 years, earning almost $275 million and lands in the top 20
list of all-time earners.
With this experience under his belt, you can understand why Jeffrey might be excited to
take a chance on Hamilton.
From the moment he sees the Lincoln Center concert, he's nudging Lynn and Tommy about
mounting a full production.
And Jeffrey turns out to be the perfect addition to the team.
He's not just a wallet.
He gives critical artistic feedback that they can trust.
Because Lynn and Tommy, they know Jeffrey isn't going to ask for changes just to make the show more profitable.
He wants them to make the best show, period.
What comes next is an intensive period of research, writing, and workshops.
Call it theatrical R&D. What comes next is an intensive period of research, writing, and workshops.
Call it theatrical R&D.
Lin spends months burying himself in Alexander's voluminous letters.
He consults with the biographer Ron Chernow to make sure his facts are all straight.
Lin and Tommy even make a research pilgrimage across the Hudson River
to the site of Hamilton's final duel so they can conjure the scene on stage.
While Lin is covering the content, Jeffrey Seller is CFOing the whole financial side.
He's raising money, creating budgets, wrangling partnerships to workshop the show, meaning
putting it on its feet with actors and musicians.
They call this taking a play from page to stage, and it often happens far away from
New York's theater district.
So, Lin and his crew, they start workshopping the show upstate.
And later, down in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan,
collecting essential cast members along the way.
Like speed rapper Daveed Diggs as Thomas Jefferson,
the crooner Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr,
Renee Elise Goldsberry as Hamilton's sister-in-law
that he's maybe in love with, Angelica, and each actor they find bring another key piece of the story to life.
And in March of 2014, it's announced that the show is heading off-Broadway to the historic
Public Theater in the East Village of New York.
Not as the Hamilton mixtape, but simply as Hamilton.
It's cleaner.
The AC is blasting inside the Richard Rogers Theatre, because outside it's a scorcher. Two hours before showtime, Lin is already backstage, trying not to be nervous. This
is the very same theatre on West 46th Street where Lin's last show, In the Heights, ran
for 1,100 performances. So he knows this plays
backwards and forwards, but right now it feels foreign. The catwalk above his head seems
a little too high, the lights feel a little too bright. It's July 13, 2015, the day of
Hamilton's first Broadway performance. And man, what a trip it has been. Remember the
public theater downtown?
That off-Broadway space with just 300 seats?
Hamilton sold out all 119 performances there.
Hamilton is riding a wave of PR buzz
unseen in the industry in decades.
But here we are on Broadway.
And from the Lincoln Center Show
to the developmental workshops,
everyone in the New York theater scene
has been buzzing about this Hamilton production.
Even the technical crew, the veteran stage folk who build sets and hang lights for hundreds
of productions, were whispering that Hamilton is something special.
So after a brief hiatus to fine-tune the show, Hamilton moves from the East Village up to its new home at the Richard Rogers Theater
on Broadway. And expectations could not be higher. Even as Lin paces backstage before
the first preview, the show has already brought in more than $27 million in advance ticket
sales.
The show's basically sold out for months before the curtain even rises. It's among the biggest pre-opening totals in Broadway history.
The hype was real.
That $27 million in pre-sales?
That's over double the initial $12.5 million investment.
Not too shabby.
But it's exactly in moments like these that doubts start to creep in.
What if the show just doesn't translate to Broadway?
What if the tourists don't love us the way public theater subscribers do?
What if this whole time, Lin and his crew have been in their own hype bubble?
But just then, someone points Lin towards the stage door because outside on 46th Street,
people have started to gather for the lottery.
Wait, is this like the Mega Millions drawing tonight?
What's going on?
No, it is not, Nick.
This is Hamilton's ticket lottery for same-day rush tickets.
Here's the deal.
A small number of front row seats are held back,
each performance until right before showtime.
Broadway shows actually have done this for years.
The cheapest rush tickets usually going for about 20 bucks a piece.
A discount to make theater more accessible
for folks with a lot of love but very little money. It's a great tradition of Broadway.
It is. Instead of $20 for these same day rush tickets, Hamilton's rush tickets are just $10.
And why is that, Nick? Well, because that's the bill with Mr. Alex Hamilton's face on it.
It's ham for ham. Yeah. You pay a Hamilton to see Hamilton. So here in the
chatter outside, Lin pops out to see the ham for ham hopefuls just as the lottery
is about to be drawn. So he steps out onto 46th Street hours before his first
show and finds himself face to face with 700 people. 700 people! That is 14 New
York City buses worth of humans. All of them waiting for the
chance to win one of just 21 tickets to tonight's opening preview.
Lin feels this rush of gratitude towards the crowd at this moment. Everyone clamoring
to experience this show he's been working on for seven years. So he gives them a word
of encouragement. So thanks to you, we're probably going to be here a while.
So don't be disappointed if you don't win today.
I love you very much.
When Lin goes on stage that night, sure enough, the front row section is filled with young
people hanging on every word. It is exactly the energy you want on
your first night.
For Hamilton's signature song, My Shot, the front row is nodding and mouthing along already
because they know every word well before the song enters the cultural zeitgeist.
Now at the next performance, Lin says hi to the rush crowd again. Only this time, instead of a quick hello, he creates an original three-minute sidewalk
performance just for this crowd.
Even those who don't win tickets, which is most of the people there, come away having
seen something totally one of a kind.
This kicks off a totally new Broadway tradition.
The Ham for Ham performances.
Most Wednesdays and Saturdays, Lynn, plus
rotating cast members, special guests, even actors from other Broadway shows, they burst
out in the stage door and perform something special for that lottery crowd. These performances
are short and silly, but they're also one of a kind and they make everyone standing
there hoping to get their hands on a ticket they probably won't get and makes them all
feel really special. Plus, let's talk a little strategy here.
These hand-for-hand mini concerts are basically a musical growth hack.
The Sidewalk Lottery tickets are already attractive to customers, but the lottery itself isn't
new.
Most Broadway shows, they have done this since Rent.
But these random live performances, that's totally innovative.
Yes.
They become a reason to keep trying to get into
Hamilton six, seven, twelve times. All while posting about it on social to drive even more
demand for the show. And from a financial perspective, the Ham for Ham shows are also
a way to democratize the experience a little. Because ironically, Hamilton, a musical about
the rise of a penniless orphan, is getting more expensive by the day.
Ticket prices continue to soar through the start of 2016, going from about $350 on average
to more than $500 if you can find a ticket at all.
And once online scalpers get involved, we're talking up to $11,000 a ticket on the secondary
market.
This has become the Louis Vuitton of live shows, the Maserati of
musicals. It is now a luxury product. Even when the original cast starts departing,
ticket prices stay high because Hamilton dominates the 2016 Tony Awards, a record 16 nominations in
13 categories with 11 wins. That's the second most in Tony history. Lin wins a Pulitzer Prize
and a MacArthur Genius Grant.
It becomes so hard to get these tickets.
Lin will make fun of it later
when he hosts Saturday Night Live.
But the luxuryification of Hamilton neck,
it gets Lin and his team thinking.
What's the legacy of this musical going to be?
Is it about a sense of belonging,
how immigrants, poor people, people of color,
all deserve a place in the American story? Or is this the story of creating the most exclusive show in town like an Hermes
Birkenbeck? It's a complicated question with no easy answer. Until they score one of the
biggest content acquisition deals of all time. This production is about to go from a Hamilton
to a billion.
Today is the worst day of Abby's life. The 17-year-old cradles her newborn son in her arms.
They all saw how much I loved him.
They didn't have to take him from me.
Between 1945 and the early 1970s,
families ship their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity
homes and forced them to secretly place their babies for adoption.
In hidden corners across America, it's still happening.
My parents had me locked up in the godparent home against my will.
They worked with them to manipulate me and to steal my son away from me.
The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell,
the father of the modern evangelical right and the founder of Liberty University,
where powerful men, emboldened by their faith,
determine who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away.
Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app
or wherever you get your podcasts.
It's just past midnight, July 3rd, 2020.
You're likely not planning your Independence Day party
because it's the thick of COVID lockdowns.
Broadway has been shuttered since March 12th.
The lights are dark.
The pause was supposed to be just one month,
but it's going to last for more than a year.
Billions in tourism dollars lost,
not to mention those 96,000 jobs.
We're talking actors, dancers, designers, box office staff,
all in limbo.
Hamilton has gone dark too.
Not just on Broadway,
but its robust touring productions that had been taking the show
all over the US, Canada, Australia, even the UK.
Yeah, King George's backyard.
The original Broadway cast had long since gone on to other gigs.
And Lin-Manuel Miranda, he's busy adapting In the Heights to the big screen and writing
songs for Disney's Moana.
You're welcome.
But now as you sit on your couch thinking about how to keep the kids six feet apart
when you bust out the Fourth of July sparklers, you notice a new icon on your Disney Plus app.
Gold background, black star, and the silhouette of a man pointing up to the sky.
Hamilton the Movie Musical is available for anyone with a Disney Plus account.
Or anyone still borrowing their ex-roommate Timmy's password.
But wait, sorry Jack. How did we get here exactly? Can we please rewind the tape a bit?
Turns out, back in June 2016, the Hamilton team did something really smart.
They captured a live performance of the original cast on film.
Now they didn't know what they would use this for yet,
but they didn't just stick a camera at the back of the house during a performance. They invested
in spending three days filming, capturing two live performances plus another day when the house was
empty. This allows them to capture all the big close-ups and set up complex shots using cranes
and a dolly track. The end result was a theatrical recording unlike any other. It puts the viewer
right up close to the action, just like you would see if you got one of those Rush seats.
You can see Thomas Jefferson's saliva as he's spitting lyrics at a Kendrick Lamar
pace. Tommy Calderax, the cash shines, and the project goes stealthily into post-production
until February 2020. That's when Disney buys the worldwide film rights
to this high-budget musical for $75 million.
It's one of the biggest acquisition deals ever
for a live performance.
Disney will match this deal in 2024
for the rights to Taylor Swift's Eris concert movie.
Hamilton sets the price for Taylor Swift.
Disney originally planned to give the film
a theatrical release, but when the pandemic hits,
people stop going to the movies.
And both streamers and viewers get desperate
for new content.
Plus, Disney Plus wanted to get some new subscribers
signed up.
So boom, Disney pivots and releases Hamilton
on Disney Plus just in time for Independence Day.
So bringing Hamilton to streaming gives regular folks, especially families,
a chance to reach back in time and get their own front row seat to the most
exclusive ticket in the world.
And it gave us all a patriotic way to celebrate America's birthday during the
lockdown. For context, about 1300 people per show watched Hamilton Live,
which means about 2.6 million
people saw Hamilton Live during its first five years on Broadway.
But for contrast, in the first 10 days on Disney+, roughly 2.7 million households streamed
Hamilton.
You're telling me in 10 days on streaming, more people saw Hamilton than saw it in five
years on Broadway?
That's exactly what I'm
saying, Jack. This Disney deal, combined with the Broadway ticket revenue, the touring, and the music
streaming, it pushes Hamilton to the billion dollar mark by 2025. Only the fourth Broadway musical
ever to achieve this feat. And based on the ticket prices, amazingly, it appears that the Disney Plus streaming version did not cannibalize the Broadway elite luxury version that still continued.
I can attest because I bought you those tickets.
I did.
I did.
I appreciate you going into debt for me on that one, Jack.
Nice gift.
But add it all up, Nick, and this founding father has officially reached unicorn status.
Stick that on the back of a $10 bill. And after 18 months of COVID induced shutdown,
the show reopens on Broadway September, 2021,
where it is still running today.
In fact, this year marks Hamilton's 10th anniversary.
Hashtag Hamilton.
We don't know where it would go next,
but I think we got a couple of guesses, right?
You saw how well Wicked did as a film adaptation
of a Broadway show.
Good point, man. Over $700 dollars in global box office revenue and counting. We
think a full-scale film adaptation of Hamilton can't be far behind. Our
prediction? Michael B. Jordan plays Washington, Benedict Cumberbatch plays
King George. And then Jack, knowing how Hollywood works, are they gonna find a way to
turn Hamilton into a trilogy?
Ben Franklin freestyles about discovering electricity.
Let's make it happen.
Just you wait.
Just you wait.
So Nick, now that we've heard the story of Hamilton,
what's your takeaway?
My takeaway, Jack, is straight from the musical.
Do not throw away your shot.
Alexander Hamilton took his shot every time he was given the chance, even if he didn't
totally feel ready.
In fact, the only time he did throw away a shot, it was during that duel that ended his
life.
Pretty meta, right?
But as the creative force behind Hamilton the musical, Lin-Manuel Miranda also had to
shoot his shot and make the most of every
opportunity even if it was a total gamble. Like when he decided to perform a brand new song at
the White House Poetry Jam, that was a huge risk, but he took it because he saw the upside and it
changed his life. Yeah, if you like sit down and actually weigh the pros and cons of that decision,
the risk was he embarrasses himself, okay.
The upside is that he ends up
disrupting the entire theater industry.
Do not throw away your shot.
But Jack, what about you?
What is your takeaway?
While I'm using another line from Hamilton,
customers wanna be in the room where it happens.
When you have an exclusive product, like Hamilton tickets,
you face a key decision, embrace that exclusivity
or find ways to let more people in.
And both approaches work,
like we learned in our Ferrari episode.
Ferrari manufactures scarcity by making,
as Enzo Ferrari put it,
one car less than the market desires.
But Hamilton's exclusivity wasn't manufactured
like Ferrari's was.
Theaters have physical limits of size and actors' capacities to do only so many shows
a week.
So unlike Ferrari, the Hamilton creative team wanted everyone who wanted to see the show
to be able to do it.
Hence the lottery tickets, the Broadway cast album, the national tours in multiple cities,
and finally the Disney Plus streaming deal. Kind of the rare case where they had both a luxury product and an accessible product.
Because customers want to be in the room where it happens.
It's up to you to decide whether you let them in.
Before we go, it is time for our absolute favorite part of the show, the best facts yet.
These are the hero stats, the facts, and the surprises we discovered in our research, but
couldn't fit into the story.
Alright, Jack, let's go into five, and a six, and a seven, and eight.
Today it may seem obvious that Lin-Manuel Miranda would play Alexander Hamilton, but
early in the development process, Lin actually couldn't decide whether he should play Hamilton,
the impulsive genius in a hurry who can't keep his mouth he should play Hamilton, the impulsive genius
in a hurry who can't keep his mouth shut, or Burr, the other main character of the play
whose whole thing is waiting and waiting for the right opportunity. Lin identifies with both,
but decides to go for Ham, of course, because he rarely gets the chance to play someone so cocky
and so cocky. The role of Burr, by the way, went to the great Leslie Odom Jr. who won a Tony Award for Best Actor.
Oh, and breaking news!
He happens to be returning to the role for 10 weeks this September.
Might want to hop on that ticket app right now if you want to see Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr.
Yeah, pause the pod. One sec, Jack.
All right, Nick. Last fact.
Several scenes in Hamilton take place in a tavern
where Alexander and his revolutionary friends literally raise a glass to freedom.
This is because historically, the founding fathers spent most of the revolution pretty
tipsy.
Yeah.
Clean water in the colonies was hard to come by, so the founding fathers mostly drank ale,
except Hamilton, who preferred wine.
America didn't run on Duncan.
It ran on Sam Adams.
Yeah, I did.
But Jack, before we go, I gotta ask, considering Mr. Kip is absolutely listening to today's
episode, what grade do you think he's given us on this analysis of Hamilton?
Mr. Kip, drop a comment and let us know.
And that is why Hamilton is the best idea yet.
Coming up on the next episode of The Best Idea Yet, put on your best sweatband and limber up that
throne elbow because we're talking about the frisbee. Hey, if you have a product you're
obsessed with but you wish you knew the backstory, drop us a comment. We'll look into it for you.
And don't forget to rate and review the pod. Five stars helps us grow the show.
The best idea yet is a production of Wondery, hosted by me, Nick Martel, and me, Jack Kravitchy Kramer. Our senior producers are Matt Beagle and Chris Gaultier. Peter Arcuni is our additional senior producer.
Our senior managing producer is Nick Ryan and Taylor Sniffin is our managing producer.
Our producer is H. Conley. Researched by Brent Corson. This episode was written and produced by Katie Clark Gray.
We use many sources in our research, including All About the Hamiltons by Rebecca Mead for
The New Yorker.
And The CEO of Hamilton, Inc. by Michael Sokolove for The New York Times Magazine.
Sound Design and Mixing by C.J.
Drommeler.
Fact-checking by Molly Artwick.
Music supervision by Scott Velazquez and Jolina Garcia for Freesan Sync.
Our theme song is Got That Feeling Again by Blacalac.
Executive producers for Nick and Jack Studios are me, Nick Martel.
And me, Jack Ravitchy Kramer.
Executive producers for Wondery are Dave Easton, Jenny Lauer Beckman, Erin O'Flaherty, and
Marshall Lewis. LONDREAD LONDREAD
LONDREAD
LONDREAD
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